Feet-First Ritter Under Siege

Federal Judge Willis W. Ritter of Utah once hauled in nearly 30 postal workers for contempt of court because mail-sorting machinery in Ritter's courthouse was noisy. He freed 29 felony convicts simply because no attorney was present at their parole hearings. Once he had a reporter confined for two hours without explanation; a bailiff said Ritter was angered by the journalist picking his nose in court. He frequently bullies attorneys, threatening them with "one of those 150 meals the sheriff serves up." He awarded a group of Indians suing the Government more than twice what they had asked for. Until slapped down by an appeals court, he used flimsy pretexts to stay Gary Gilmore's execution earlier this year. And he cited a Salt Lake City TV station for violating his unique no-sketching regulation--even though the drawing in question had been done from memory, well away from Ritter's courthouse.

For 28 years, the short, , rotund judge, now 78, has dominated Utah legal affairs, terrorizing attorneys and angering government officials. Now, however, a determined posse of federal and state officials have mounted a strenuous effort to rein in the freewheeling Ritter. The U.S. Attorney for Utah, Ramon Child, last month filed an unprecedented petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, demanding Ritter's disqualification from any case involving the Federal Government. Last week Utah Attorney General Robert Hansen filed a similar plea for all cases involving his state. In Washington, the Senate has authorized an admittedly superfluous third federal judge for Utah, and a House subcommittee has approved repeal of a grandfather clause, which could also cost Ritter his power to assign cases. (Congress exempted 32 sitting chiefs of two-judge districts when it mandated an age 70 retirement policy in 1958; now Ritter is the sole survivor.) Either step would please Utah Senator Jake Garn, who brands Ritter "a disgrace to the federal judiciary."

A former silver mine laborer and longtime University of Utah law professor, Ritter was appointed to the bench by President Truman in 1949. As a non-Mormon liberal, he was bitterly opposed for what was then the sole Utah federal trial judgeship in an acrimonious confirmation fight punctuated by charges of personal immorality and corruption. Ever since Territorial Justice James McKean hauled in Polygamist Brigham Young on adultery charges in 1871, federal judges have traditionally warred with the Utah Establishment; Ritter proved to be particularly contrary, and the only substantial victory against him--installation in 1954 of a second Utah federal judge --failed to mellow him.

Through 1975 Ritter was reversed in an astounding 58% of his civil cases, 40% of his criminal cases and 76% of his habeas corpus cases--perhaps the worst record in the U.S. He has twice been removed from cases by the U.S. Supreme Court for bias. U.S. Attorney Child, in 1,018 pages of complaints, accused Ritter of repeated misconduct, including failing to observe procedural rules, ignoring judicial precedents and ruling capriciously.

After particularly injudicious statements from the bench, Child says, Ritter has been known to confiscate the court stenographer's notes, thus escaping appellate court censure. Nondrinking Utah Mormons also bristle about Ritter's personal habits; he is known to combat his state's dry heat with a frequent Wild Turkey bourbon, and was once ejected from the University Club in Salt Lake City for encouraging a barroom fight. Ritter has his defenders. Some describe him as an oasis of concern for Indians, the poor and first offenders in a hostile right-wing desert. Says Salt Lake Attorney E. Wayne

Thode: "Without his presence, Utah wouldn't be in the 20th century in civil rights." Adds a former Ritter clerk, Craig Smay: "He would have been recognized as a great judge elsewhere. Precise legal thinking is not respected here."

Even Ritter's critics concede there are no "high crimes or misdemeanors" in his record that would compel impeachment. The various assaults on his authority do not affect his lifetime appointment. And so, as Ritter himself once predicted, he will probably be trying cases until "they take me off the bench feet first." -

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